If you suffer from General Anxiety Disorder, this is important news about the best way to recover.

A new series of studies conducted on 1,305 participants has shown that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the best ways to treat General Anxiety Disorder – a condition that affects 4 million Americans and many more worldwide.

It is more common in women than in men. It generally begins to develop in childhood and adolescence, but it can also start in adulthood.

The symptoms can be quite debilitating. Sufferers experience chronic and exaggerated worry seemingly without cause. For instance, they often worry about health, family, work, relationships and unforeseen disasters, among other things, many of them trivial and unimportant.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder can be accompanied by depression, substance abuse and other anxiety disorders, although it doesn’t necessarily share the same symptoms such as avoiding certain situations that are unrealistically threatening in some way.

Although GAD sufferers are aware that their anxiety is unwarranted, they cannot overcome the irrational thoughts. Symptoms can include:

• Trembling
• muscle tension
• headaches
• irritability
• lightheadedness
• difficulty breathing
• nausea
• feeling a lump in the throat
• inability to concentrate
• fatigue
• an inability to relax

This new study is great news, as it defines the most effective way of treating the condition.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes how our thinking affects how we feel and act. It’s goal is to identify and change distorted and unrealistic ways of thinking. CBT was developed by psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s. He understood that treating how a person perceives and interprets things is key to therapy.

The approach is to combine behavioral therapy with cognitive therapy.

Behavioral therapy involves learning how to change your behavior by implementing such things as desensitization, relaxation and breathing exercises.

The goal of cognitive therapy is to learn how to recognize and change that distorted thinking by gaining control over racing thoughts and repetitive thinking that often triggers anxiety and can even feed it.

The methods learned can be implemented during an extreme anxiety attack and thereby help calm you down and enable you to focus your thinking away from the anxiety.

While these are methods you can study on your own, practice and apply, sometimes it’s necessary to get the help of a therapist who can provide an opportunity for you to talk through your condition. This alone is extremely beneficial to your recovery. In some cases, medications might be prescribed along with the cognitive behavior therapy.

As for the study, it showed that of 46% of people undergoing CBT saw improvement in their anxiety symptoms, compared to 14% of those who were not undergoing CBT.

The key is to be motivated in your treatment, because CBT involves hard work. There will be times you’ll feel uncomfortable and begin to doubt the effectiveness of the treatment. It’s important to keep in mind that the harder you work, the sooner and more likely you will recover.

There are several programs available that are based on the cognitive behavior approach. One that I highly recommend is The Linden Method. Many people have expressed tremendous success using this method. It was developed by an ex-anxiety sufferer who has done extensive research and set up his business to include one-on-one counseling for those using his program. You can read my review of his program at http://www.book-titles.ca/lindenmethod.htm

Last week, I was discussing anxiety with someone who wanted to know what caused the anxiety that came out of the blue without warning. He had already been told it was a thought in the subconscious that caused it but that didn’t help him much.

I knew what he was talking about, however. While discovering how to handle my own anxiety attacks, I learned that each one was triggered by a thought. This thought was little more than a flash, making it very difficult to know exactly what had just gone through my mind to trigger this fear.

It’s been quite a few years now since I became relatively anxiety-free so I had to really think back. Then I remembered that experience when that same strange fear rose from somewhere deep within me. Almost instantaneously, the anxiety would grow into panic and I felt totally out of control of my situation. Of course, that just worsened the attack.

The thought that triggered mine was sudden, unexpected and unexplainable and I knew I needed to find out what that flash was if I were to resolve my anxiety. With practice, I learned how to stop and focus on what had just happened the moment I sensed the beginning of the attack.

Surprisingly, in many cases I was able to recall what I had been thinking, looking at or worried about  that had caused the fearful thought. In most cases, I could link it directly to something that made me feel insecure. On occasion, it was based on something from my past that was still affecting my thoughts. Often, I had seen something that subconsciously reminded me of that insecurity. For a split second, the thought triggered the fear and the anxiety began.

The best I can explain it is to turn to dreams. Sometimes when we awake from a dream, we might not even know we were dreaming but we wake up feeling a certain way – perhaps comfortable or anxious. If it was an especially disturbing or happy dream, we want to remember it and figure out what was going on.

This is much like the thought flash that begins an anxiety attack.

The trick to catching these fleeting thoughts is difficult. It does take practice and you have to be prepared to let go of the anxiety and change the direction of your thoughts. Instead of focusing on the fear of the attack, focus on recalling your recent thoughts. Sometimes this alone can stop the attack.

These thoughts can be vague, but sometimes it’s possible to get the basic concept of the thought. In most cases, you can be sure it has something to do with your lack of confidence or low self esteem. At the moment you are able to grasp the thought you will begin to see this pattern.

If you can learn to make that jump in your thinking and identify those little ‘demons’ that remind you of your insecurities, you will be able to stop your anxiety before it becomes full-blown.

Recently, I was chatting on one of the forums when one participant expressed concern about the upcoming wedding of her friend. Her fears were that she’d have an anxiety attack while she was there. The friend apparently thought she was just joking and shrugged it off.

It was very serious to this poster, however. In fact, she was considering backing out altogether rather than face the possibility of embarrassing herself in front of a group of people.

Her fears are understandable since she’ll be among people she didn’t know and would be participating in the wedding which can be a little unnerving if you’ve never done it before. It would mean putting herself “on display” in a sense. Who wouldn’t feel anxious?

Back in the days when I experienced anxiety on a regular basis, I dreaded many things that would put me in an uncomfortable situation. I was a mess the day I had to interview my town’s mayor for a college project. Had I been much younger at the time, I would never have gone through with it. It helped considerably to have been older and a little more secure.

One method to alleviate my anxiety involved turning my attention to things that would trigger laughter. Mostly, it involved watching nothing but comedy shows on TV.

Then, I heard this woman’s story and offered another technique that has worked for me. Perhaps it will help you, too, next time you feel an attack coming on.

If you are going somewhere that makes you nervous, think about what you’re going into. Try to identify what, exactly, is making you fearful about it. Are you going to be in front of strangers? Making a speech? Will you be expected to participate in some way? Do you feel insecure about your abilities to handle whatever they request? Are you afraid of doing something foolish? Are you unsure of the people there? How you’ll be accepted? Of the event itself?

The fear will likely be related to something like that, but ask yourself more questions. Why does it scare you so much? What’s the worst that can happen and is it really likely to happen?

Next, set your mind in preparation for that day. Prior to the event, imagine what it will be like and the people who will be attending. Think about your actual fear and exaggerate whatever is causing it. Blow it all out of proportion to the point there’s no way you would ever truly expect it to happen like that. Make it ridiculously silly. Make everything about the whole event outrageously funny. Give everyone some quirky characteristic. Throw in some weird event within the event. Use your imagination.

Try to make it as humorous as you can. Give someone a very long nose that they trip over. Put funny hats on everyone and imagine them all in different funny poses. Imagine the floor is paved with soft flowery padding and listen to the silence as you walk across the room. See yourself being bowed to out of respect from your peers. As they are bent over, imagine something funny happening to them.

It’s best if you know who might be attending because then you can attach your funny images to those individuals. This is especially good if there will be someone there that you fear or who makes you tense. Or try to focus on people who have a humorous side. Think about how they likely will be acting and exaggerate that. Practice beforehand and when you see them at the event it will be easy to see them the way you imagined them.

Now, when you actually go to the event and you begin to feel anxious, draw up one of those funny images. Let yourself smile. Exaggerate everything into something funny. Listen closely to the words being spoken and how they sound and look for the humorous elements. Think of certain words and their other meanings – many words have dual meanings and if you change the meaning in the sentence, it can be quite funny.

I know some people who have a knack for turning everything you say into something sexual or rude. If that’s your thing, do that too. I’m not suggesting you insult people or be rude to them by laughing and making obscene comments, but often just thinking this way can ease the tension and stop the anxiety.

I’ve learned that panic (fear) and laughter don’t occur at the same time. By finding things that make you laugh (inside or out) you can quickly bring a halt to an oncoming anxiety attack.

If you find this works for you, by all means post a comment here and tell us how it happened so others reading this blog can try your method, too.